SWARMING AND MATING FLIGHT 
53 
munity started, we can leave it and go back to the 
old mother-hive from which the swarm came forth. 
. . . Little seems to be going on about the en¬ 
trance. . . . Few bees fly in and out, and when 
the cover is lifted off the hive seems comparatively 
empty. 
Nevertheless, examination shows that there are 
still some bees left in charge and that there are thou¬ 
sands of young bees who will soon emerge from their 
dark, tight little cells. Also there are half a dozen 
large, important-looking queen cells capped over 
with wax. 
If one is broken open a young queen will be found 
inside. She may be just on the point of biting her 
way out or she may not yet be sufficiently developed 
to emerge for several days. In the bottom of her 
cell is a mass of white “royal jelly,” a highly con¬ 
centrated honey food which, with the enlarged cell, 
has brought about her development, from an or¬ 
dinary worker-bee egg, into a fertile queen, instead 
of a worker, or sterile female. 
For the queen can lay two kinds of eggs at will— 
drone eggs or worker eggs. When the workers wish 
a new queen, they simply make a large cell, transfer 
a worker egg into it, and supply it bounteously with 
“royal jelly.” 
